27 Perks Of Being Short

At 4’11”, I am about as petite as it gets, and I love it most days. At this point, it’s a major (and welcome) part of who I am, and I can’t really imagine my life any other way (tall girls, perhaps you can relate). Fellow short friends, this is your PSA reminder that tiny is a great way to be. Being short definitely has its downsides — looking small and defenseless seems to make people more inclined to treat my body like public property, and I might lose my mind if I have to endure one more person using my shoulder/head as an armrest while giggling manically as if they are the first person to come up with this novel idea until it finally registers that they are being rude as hell. But I digress. Let’s talk positives, because in my mind, they outweigh the bad stuff. There are so many great things about life as a short girl, and here are just a few of them.

1. You’ll always have leg room on planes, trains and buses.

2. Crowd weaving is your art form. Ten minutes at any packed concert can get you from the back of the room to the front row, usually unnoticed. Strangers will even help you move in front of them!

3. You never have to crouch down to get through doorways and can easily float about in small spaces like, say, microscopic city apartments.

4. People instinctively want to protect you, which makes asking for help with any physical task infinitely easier.

5. You have a unique personal brand. Actors, dancers, “internet stars” or anybody else whose “type” is part of their career (which, in the Twitter age, is most people to some degree) can use their petite look to stand out as part of a niche instead of one of 10,000 other twenty-something chicks of average height.

6. Your height gives you a stand-in personality. Don’t feel like hamming it up at a party full of strangers? That’s okay, your size will do it for you! Despite the fact that you’ll hardly be the first short person your peers have seen in their lives or even that day, you’re guaranteed to be slammed with a slew of questions and commentary about how you’re “so adorable.” Even if you just sit there glaring, you’ll be remembered as the cute and tiny one.

8. You can shop in the children’s section and save tons of money. Let’s be real, sometimes kids’ clothes are way more stylish than grownup clothes. You can also get away with wearing frilly and/or frivolous ensembles because no matter your personality, your height deems you bubbly and cute to strangers!

9. You will look young forever.

10. Every potential date will be taller than you, if you’re into that sort of thing.

11. You can wear whatever heels you want.

12. You’re a perfect crowd surfing candidate.

13. You’ll always be able to fit your entire body underneath tiny throw blankets instead of having to cast out your feet to freeze in the open air.

14. Kids will love you because they think you’re one of them.

15. You’ll always be cute. It can suck to be called adorable instead of sexy, but while sexy can come and go, the flattery of “adorable” will stick to you for life. And hey, it’s better than being called “uggo” right?

16. Needing help reaching the top shelf makes for an instant conversation starter in the grocery store.

17. You’ll be carded forever, which at some point will start to feel very flattering.

18. You can curl up into things more easily. This makes movie theatre seats, your desk chair at the office, a hot dude’s outstretched arm, and your window seat on the train infinitely more comfy.

19. You can get kids’ discounts. You can also be a generally more playful person in life, and can hang out on a swing set as a grown-up without as many angry scowls. Who says we have to act like boring grown-ups all the time just because we’re not 12 anymore?

20. If you have small feet, you can buy kids’ shoes. Half the time they’re the exact same style as their grown-up counterparts, just infinitely cheaper.

21. Sample sales are your friend. Even though sample sizes are rarely petites, being short often allows dresses made for very tall rail-thin models to glide over your curvy, normal-sized body because the proportions somehow make up for each other.

22. You are a pro at basic sewing skills. Hemming skirts and shortening the straps on dresses makes you awesome at minor clothing repairs, which comes in handy in life.

23. Changes in your shape show up right away on your small frame. Your height makes beautiful curves look way more sexy and dramatic or a five-pound weight loss look like a major body overhaul.

24. People inherently trust you. Being small often equates to looking young, wholesome or polite, which has its advantages.

25. You get to have stunning celebs like Carrie Underwood, Kourtney Kardashian, Kristin Chenoweth and Reese Witherspoon as your style role models.

26. It can keep you humble, if you let it. Petite life means you get lots of practice with people dumping obnoxious, knee-jerk commentary on you without thinking. People have a tendency to say very blatant things to short folks (and probably very tall people too) that they’d never say about other, more sensitive physical traits — and they usually don’t even realize how offensive it can sound. This can be ammunition in life, because by the time you’re in the grown-up world meeting all kinds of people who are were raised differently than you, you’ll know better than to ever make a rude offhand comment about what makes them stand out — and if they try to pull that on you, you’ll have plenty of well-practiced snarky-yet-graceful retorts to reply with.

27. People might massively underestimate you. You look unassuming and un-intimidating, and people may take that to mean that you’re not very capable. You can get past the radars of combative types who attempt to undermine competition, and quietly do amazing things that nobody ever saw coming.